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Security first

Jeb Bush appears to be taking a different tack than his brother on the extent to which the United States should promote democracy around the world as part of its foreign policy efforts.

“It has to be tempered with the realization that not every country is immediately going to become a little ‘d’ democratic country,” Jeb Bush said in an interview with The Daily Caller published Monday. “Iraq would be a good example of that I think.”

Security should come first, the younger Bush said when asked whether the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq could be judged as successes if those countries end up as autocratic regimes or worse.

“I think ultimately security will lead towards democracy and having an engaged America will help make that so, but you cannot have democracy without security,” he added.

There is a difference between supporting democratic movements, which is a smart thing to do, and nation building, which, of course, the Prime Directive prevents us from doing. And Jeb is also right about security -- remember "making the world safe for democracy"? Bewteen GWB's interventionism and BHO's "lead from behind" passivity, foreign policy has been so thorougly mucked up that almost anything different would sound like common sense at this point.